Curious

Sydney — Tuesday 15 July 2025

Sydney – Tuesday 15 July 2025. Ideas, culture and creativity collide in Curious, an all-new talks experience from the Sydney Opera House designed to make sense of our evolving and often divided world, taking place on Sunday 28 September. Bringing together a cohort of the sharpest and boldest thinkers locally and internationally, Curious will dive into the questions sparking debate and shaping headlines about the changing ways we live, work and thrive.

Sydney Opera House Head of Talks & Ideas, Chip Rolley says: “We all recognise we are living in an entirely different world – even compared to just five years ago. We feel a different world calls for a different approach to ideas. One that experiments a little with format and is curious about how to navigate the tensions and contradictions of modern life and seize what’s possible. Curious is made for people who haven’t made up their minds and who are open to finding out more.”

The program includes:

• Is It Fascism Yet? – An urgent conversation on democracy in crisis with one of the world’s foremost fascism experts, professor and author Jason Stanley (he/him), who recently left the US for Canada. Joined by Russian American author, translator and journalist M Gessen (they/them) who fled Russia’s conversion to autocracy, they’ll wrestle with what is happening in the US and what it means for Australia and the world. Led by renowned author Anna Funder (she/her).
• Live Journalism – An innovative format featuring a fusion of storytelling, crafted reporting and immersive sound design in ear-popping detail. Booker Prize-winning author Richard Flanagan (he/him), technology reporter Ange Lavoipierre (she/they), audio producer and writer Rachael Cusick (she/her) and other special guests will reveal four distinct stories – from sharks in the waters off Port Lincoln to the parlour of a Sydney clairvoyant and more.
• Is this AI’s Black Mirror Moment? – Once the plaything of science fiction, AI has become all too real with hallucinating chatbots, conspiracy spirals and deepfake dramas causing chaos. Australia’s most beloved science communicator Dr Karl Kruszelnicki (he/him) will join a deep dive with cognitive scientist Dr Micah Goldwater (he/him), computer scientist Dr Jonathan Kummerfeld (he/him) and Walkley-winning filmmaker and synthetic media researcher Dr Anna Broinowski (she/her) about how AI is reshaping social bonds and challenging our sense of truth. Steered by Rae Johnston (she/her) and co-presented with the University of Sydney.
• Gender and Power – Current intersections of gender, control and power have seen trans and nonbinary people denied basic civil rights. How has gender panic fallen on such fertile ground? Unrivalled in their ability to see connections others miss, M Gessen leads this examination and asks what hope might there be for a world that looks different from the one we are living in now? Co-presented with the University of Sydney.

Sydney Opera House thanks Event Partners Nuix and the University of Sydney for their support of Curious.